Mork (nice, and a little annoying, but not as annoying as Jar Jar Binks.)

Mork (nice, and a little annoying, but not as annoying as Jar Jar Binks.)

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'Independence Day' (Bad)

'Independence Day' (Bad)

Photo: Associated Press

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'Mars Attacks' (Bad)

'Mars Attacks' (Bad)

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'Communion' (Bad)

'Communion' (Bad)

Photo: New Line Cinema

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'Paul' (Nice)

'Paul' (Nice)

Photo: Universal Pictures

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'E.T.' (Nice)

'E.T.' (Nice)

Photo: AP

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'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (Bad)

'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (Bad)

Photo: Hulton Archive / Getty Images

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'Contact' (Nice)

'Contact' (Nice)

Photo: Warner Bros. / Associated Press

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'Starman' (Nice)

'Starman' (Nice)

Photo: Columbia Pictures

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'The War of the Worlds' (Bad)

'The War of the Worlds' (Bad)

Photo: Paramount Pictures / Getty Images

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The Thing (Bad)

The Thing (Bad)

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'Avatar' (BAD -- except that this time WE were the space aliens)

'Avatar' (BAD -- except that this time WE were the space aliens)

Photo: 20th Century Fox / AP

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Space aliens — The good, the bad and mostly ugly

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The release of THE HOST — see my review here — in which an alien soul and a human soul share possession of the same body becomes our occasion for looking back on space aliens in movies.

In the 1950s, at a time when people were feeling paranoid, space aliens were usually evil. Even on THE TWILIGHT ZONE, made in the early 1960s, aliens were usually evil.

STAR TREK indicated a thawing toward space aliens in the late 1960s — some were good, some were bad, and some even had sex with Captain Kirk. But it wasn’t until Steven Spielberg, with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and E.T., that we saw good aliens in the ascendant.

If we ever find ourselves defenseless before alien enemies, we will have Spielberg’s naive propaganda to blame.

Since the ’80s, the record of alien virtue has been a mixed one. AVATAR brought an interesting twist a few years ago, a kind of ultimate answer to THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, in which the aliens came to destroy our planet before we could start trouble in the universe. Basically, the events of AVATAR were what the aliens in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL were worried about.

By the way, the aliens in THE HOST are neither good nor bad. They’re not particularly good for US, but they’re nicer than we are. So they’re not bad, and they’re not good; they’re just like everybody else.